The City of Central is working to put a stop to litter bugs

CENTRAL, La. (WAFB) - Kawonas Brown is the Fuel Manager at the Walmart off Hooper Road. She said the hardest part about her job is picking up litter.

“All day long,” said Brown. “Sometimes they just clean out their cars and empty all the trash.”

Brown believes the litter problem in Central leaves a bad first impression.

“When you come onto a property or somewhere to shop, the first thing a customer or anyone sees is the parking lot and if you go somewhere and it’s not clean, you’re going to be like I don’t want to go there,” said Brown.

Brown isn’t the only one tired of all the trash.

“Just defacing the city by dumping,” said Evans. “I mean it’s very frustrating when people throw stuff out of the car but it’s even more when they’re intentionally driving a load of trash to a location and emptying it.”

Mayor Wade Evans said the city spends around $400,000 a year on litter pickups. Now, new funding from Keep Louisiana Beautiful is helping them put up 60 signs to discourage illegal dumping around the city. Evans said five solar-powered cameras for litter enforcement will also be installed at hot spot locations.

“We’re spending too many taxpayer dollars cleaning up the messes that others are leaving and so we’re going to put these cameras to work to do some litter enforcement and we’re going to actively go after litter bugs,” said Evans.

The City of Central Police Department will monitor the sites with cameras. Anyone caught littering will be arrested for a misdemeanor and pay a $500 fine.

Instead of littering, Evans encourages people to drop off their trash at the landfill.

“We have rules we have to follow so let’s try to follow them and keep our city beautiful,” said Evans.

Something Brown tries to do every day.

“It’ll help me a lot from not having to go out and pick up a lot of things and clean up so litter is a big deal,” said Brown. “It does make a difference and I’m glad they’re helping to do it because it’s going to help me a lot.”

You can expect to see the 60 signs and five cameras go up around the city within the next 45 days.

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